Thsy were meant to punish Massachusetts for the Boston tea party and warn the other colonies of Britain's power
They bred prolifically and when their population exceeded the capacity of their limited land to sustain them, they sent out the surplus population to seize new land and establish new city-states. So they spread right around the Mediterranean and Black Seas.
It would be ideals primarily from the Enlightenment Period in Europe that the United States derives much of its character, since this was a time in which people started to question the divine right of kings, and started to emphasize personal freedoms and liberty.
